A Brunch Date July 10, 2012

A while ago I spotted a brunch Groupon at a place called Pulp Kitchen in Oak Brook.

I love brunch- it’s acceptable to have breakfast or lunch? And drink champagne?  I’m in!  So without much research on the place at all I purchased the $10 for $20 Groupon.  For those of you who are unfamiliar/ living under a rock, Groupon is a particular brand that boasts really great deals on everything from restaurants to spa services for a huge discount in your particular city.  The catch it that a certain number of people must buy the coupon for the deal to be ‘On’.  Which just means the establishments must be making some sort of profit in order to honor the deal {don’t worry if not enough people buy they will return your money}.  The power of numbers!  There are other companies such as Living Social that work similarly, but personally I’ve only used Groupon.  I have to be careful not to buy deals just because they are a good deal.  I need to make sure I will actually use it.

So far in my Groupon history I’ve purchased:

$15 for $30 at a Hawaiian bar

Three Airbrush tans for $49-usually $105

Two $5 for $10 worth at Jerusalem Café- love this place obviously

$10 for $20 at Old Navy

One month of unlimited classes at Corepower Yoga for $49- usually $149

Two Murder Mystery Tickets for $60- usually $120

And I have two that I am waiting to use:

Four admissions to a Wine class for $64- usually $160

Snow show lessons and rental for two $50- usually $100 {every time it snowed enough for this last winter it would melt within a day. Grr!  Luckily they extended the expiration date}

As you can see the site has served me well and has caused me to try a lot of new things.  Back to Pulp Kitchen:

I enlisted my friend Lei to join me there this weekend and it ended up being an awesome place for brunch.  Not only was the food delicious, but the décor was so bright and fun.

We had a great time catching up on the goings on and enjoying our strawberry OJ.  Real strawberry puree in the fresh sqeezed orange juce. Swoon.

My only complaint?  Too many choices on the menu!  As we looked at the other tables we realized that absolutely every dish looked like something we wanted to order.  We were too shy to order the Carrot Cake pancakes, but when we saw them at another table we both agreed they looked delectable.  Here is the Breakfast Pannini I finally decided on:

Lei had the Skinny B@#c* Burrito in the background.  I can’t wait to go back and try something else!

Getting Ready for the Holidays November 23, 2011

The ads started for black Friday a few weeks ago. My favorite crazy Target lady is back. I guess that means Thanksgiving has been officially put in the back seat. Slowly but surely Christmas is creeping up on us.

Originally, holiday ornamentation inched from the back to the front of stores. It phased out the overlooked holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Pumpkins were replaced with stockings. Lawn decorations of inflatable spiders were deflated to make room for lighted reindeer. All to soon the colors of green, red, white, blue, silver and gold exploded like a firecracker on Independence Day.

So where does that leave us? Ready to embrace it, that’s where! I’m starting to get my holiday to-do’s in a row and that got me thinking, how do you get ready for the holidays? Do you set goals? Is there anything special you do to keep organized or sane? I’m curious to hear what you folks do.

Of course, I’ll share a few of my secrets for sanity.

• One goal for this year is to shop locally for holiday gifts. Even though I do live in one of the highest taxed counties in the nation, the holiday season is about giving back. Hence, I want to give back to the local independent retail owners in my neighborhood. I can’t help out Wall Street but I can help my own main street.
• Lists, lists and more lists! Oh, and a few excel files too.
  • Last year I created my cookie spreadsheet. It’s my dashboard for cooking listing a regular baking schedule, ingredients, and links or page references to cook books and or magazines. Last week I updated it and I cannot wait to try out three new recipes! You’ll just have to wait to find out what they are in a future post J.
  • Another excel file I created last year that got some updating is a gift list. It helps me to stay on track with what I bought, for whom and how much. This is a great way to try and stay true to my budget. I know the budget will get blown, but I can at least try to stay pretty close with my “total sum” column.
  • My gift list! Just a simple bullet list of items that I wouldn’t mind receiving with links to examples. They’re not necessarily the exact things I would like but it helps to give people a reference point.
  • Christmas card deals. I love a bargain. The clearance rack and I are on a first name basis and more and more that first name is being used with Groupon. They have fabulous holiday deals. Just today I bought a Groupon for $25 that gets me 50 customized holiday cards. Done and done. Well, almost. I have to figure out what photos to use, but that’s a minor detail.
    

    My Holiday Deal from Group0n

So, what are your suggestions? Do you have any for me that I could incorporate? I’m all ears!

Paddle On August 24, 2011

Groupon is a pretty good resource to find nifty deals around Chicago. A few months ago, in my daily deals email, I spotted a kayaking deal. For the bargain price of $50, I purchased two single kayak Skyscraper Canyon Trips with Chicago River Canoe and Kayak (CRCK). One for me and one for my dude since I didn’t trust his skills in a tandem at the time. However, for the record he definitely proved himself and I’m looking forward to our next adventure on the water.

Originally we were supposed to redeem our Groupons two weeks ago. Unfortunately Mother Nature decided to veto that move with a thunderstorm. Ryan Chew, one of the key folks over at CRCK was majorly apologetic and immediately got us rescheduled. So, this past Monday we showed up 2120 Canal Street to get our paddle on.

The weather was perfect: low humidity, clear, puffy white clouds and not 110 degrees like earlier in the summer, but rather a comfortable 70. We met Ryan right away and he helped to get us outfitted with life jackets and gave us a run-down on getting fitted to our kayaks. After that we met up with the rest of our group, and had a mini pow-wow where the staff explained more about our six mile tour, gave a paddling demo and a rules of the water speech.

Armed with our paddles and proper techniques, we were off! We launched around the intersection of Canal and Cermak and continued on north into the Loop. The water in the beginning was nice and still, making for a pleasant ride under the blue sky. However, when we got to the “hub” around the Michigan Avenue Bridge (our turn around point) the water picked up to a decent chop, all due to boat traffic. Water taxis, sight-seeing tours, private boats and even barges made for interesting passing maneuvers. Needless to say, my arms were looking forward to heading back south to the calmer water.

As we headed back, the sun was setting and the buildings began to glow. The views were so unique due to our vantage point in the water and then adding sunset equals Chicago architecture awesomeness. We paddled by landmarks such as the Merchandise Mart, Union Station, Willis Tower, and the Leo Burnet building.

My favorite part of the tour came at the end. We were on our way back down the river when our guide told us to stop and turn around. We looked back from our kayaks at a beautiful night cityscape. Breathtaking would be a fitting word to describe it.

All in all, I’d totally recommend the tour if you’re looking for fun outing that involves a slight workout. Definitely check out CRCK as an option. Their staff was great and very informative. Now I just have to wait for another kayak Groupon…